Bossa Nova Takes Center Stage at Santa Monica Library

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Harding, Larmore
Kutcher & Kozal, LLP

By Jorge Casuso

January 18, 2018 -- It's been 55 years since “The Girl From Ipanema” knocked the Beatles from the top spot on the Billboard charts and triggered a craze for the cool swing and gentle sway of Brazil's bossa nova sound.

On Thursday, January 25, at 7 p.m., the Santa Monica Public Library will host a concert by the Angelo Metz Quartet that testifies to the cross-fertilization of jazz and samba over the past half century.

The quartet performs "a repertoire exemplifying the influences of jazz in the Brazilian musical style of Bossa Nova, and explores its incorporation into the classic American Jazz songbook," event organizers said.

Among the legendary American musicians who have tapped into the cool bossa nova sound are Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

Lounge music has also been inspired by the smooth orchestrations of Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, who penned many of the bossa nova standards.

Unlike Afro-Cuban music, whose more aggressive, passionate sound that can be traced to Spain and Africa, Brazilian music taps into the lilting cadence of Portuguese for the bobbing, gentle pulse underlying its flowing melodies.